Okay, so most of us aren’t likely to break out into fistfights with our roommates, but we’ve all heard stories about crazy bosses, unbearable colleagues, and dysfunctional workplaces. That’s when Josh Freedman says we need to exercise our emotional intelligence.

JOSH FREEDMAN: Emotional intelligence is being smart with feelings. If we pay attention to those feelings, we can be more intentional with them, we can be more purposeful with them. We can use them as data. We can use them as energy to make better decisions and respond more proactively.

We've all experienced that we've done dumb things when we're reacting emotionally. That doesn't mean that emotions are bad; it means that we haven't learned. We haven't been intelligent with our feelings. So if we can tap into them, we can understand them better – we can be more emotionally intelligent.

Freedman is the COO of Six Seconds, the Emotional Intelligence Network. It’s an organization that helps people improve their relationships from the inside out. Freedman sat down with KALW’s Erica Mu to discuss what emotional intelligence is, and how an unlikely national institution has used it for the better.

* * *

JOSH FREEDMAN: We all have changes that we want to make – personally, professionally, in our organizations, in our families, and in our own health. And in order to make those changes, one of the big challenges is that we’ve got to learn. We’ve got to engage some new capacities. We’ve got to develop some new competence. And we’ve got to do things differently if we’re going to have different results. And so, we’re going to learn and use emotions, and learn through emotions, that understanding of how the brain actually works – tapping into what drives our changes, what drives new insights, what drives our capacity to do things differently, and understanding that a huge part of that is emotional, understanding that emotions have a governing effect.

Take trust, for example. Trust is an emotion that tells us whether to move forward or not. So we’re trying to change, we’re trying to do something new. It we don’t pay attention to trust and really tap into that and learn what that is and how to make it work, we’re not going to create change.

And we’ve developed a process framework. It’s really three simple steps, and when we follow those steps, we can start using our emotional intelligence more effectively. And those steps are: know ourselves, which is about gaining the data – tuning in, finding out what’s happening. Second is to choose ourselves, which is about being more intentional instead of being reactive. And the third is to give ourselves, which is about aligning our choices with our deeper sense of purpose – paying attention to others, paying attention to what we really want, making sure that what we’re doing and how we’re doing it aligns to that.

ERICA MU: So, I want to know more about the “manage” part of this equation. Josh, describe to me if I’m really angry, and in a situation where something’s been stolen from me and that I realize that I’ve misplaced it, but I’m still angry – what do I do?

FREEDMAN: Well I’d say first of all, if you’ve got some chocolate on your desk and it disappears and you think somebody’s stolen it and then you realize that it was actually in your bag or something, you’re going to have a set of emotions. And you may notice your anger. You may also have other emotions that you might not be noticing at first glance. And so I’d say the first step before you get to “manage” is understanding – know yourself. What is the range of feelings that you’re feeling? You’re feeling angry – okay. “I’m also feeling worried. I’m also feeling like I’ve been an idiot. I’m also feeling remorse. I’m feeling this big mix of feelings.”

If we pay attention only to the surface feeling, it’d be the same thing as only paying attention to the surface piece of data if we’re doing analysis about a company or buying a property or buying a car. It’s like, is all you’re going to look at the color? Is all you’re going to look at the name of the business? Or are you going to dig in and try to understand there’s a little bit more going on here?

So if we get past the surface and we realize, okay – “I have this feeling, but there are also all these other feelings underneath, and what are all these other feelings about?” They’re there for a reason. So that’s the second point that I think is very important, is that often we have feelings, and we tell ourselves, “I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t feel frustrated. I shouldn’t feel worried. I shouldn’t feel jealous.” And when we pay attention to that, what we’re doing is we’re going to war with ourselves. When we get caught up in an emotion – sometimes we have a self perception that we have no choice about what we’re feeling and no choice about what we’re doing – and the simple recognition that we do have a choice creates this huge transformation. “Wait a minute, if I have choice, what am I going to do? What am I going to exercise? Where am I going to go with this?”

And that in itself begins to transform the feeling.

MU: Josh, describe to me your trainings with the Navy. It’s an institution that most of us don’t really think about as caring too much about feelings. It’s an institution that often is known to be more action-oriented. What was that like?

FREEDMAN: I went in with a number of assumptions. I grew up in Berkeley in a very liberal family. And so I went into this project thinking that I had some understanding of what the military was, and I found that it was really different than I expected. I found that people were there in general with very strong values, very strong sense of commitment to mission, commitment to their country – a real service orientation. And that’s all emotional. That’s all about feelings that engender a sense of loyalty and trust and courage.

We did work with the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and the Navy. We’ve also worked with all the other branches of the armed services. And they are very concerned about emotion. They pay a lot of attention to it. They don’t generally talk about it as emotion; they use phrases like, “We’ve got to get our head in the game.” In the Marine Corps, they talk about a “spree.” But really what they’re talking about is emotion.

I had an officer say to me, “I’m not going to ask a bunch of Marines how they’re feeling before they storm a hill.” But if you don’t know how they’re feeling, it’s probably a really bad idea to storm the hill, because if you’re not paying attention to your own feelings and your relationship with them and their feelings in this situation, you may be in for a really difficult problem when you get to this place of saying, “Hey guys, we’re going to go do this.”

I think that one of the most powerful comments I got from one of the people I worked with in the Navy was a member of the chaplain corps, and he said, “We send people into this incredibly awful thing of war, and we need to provide a bridge for them to come home.” You know there’s an incredible problem with domestic violence from returning warriors, and that is … it’s a national tragedy that we’re not equipping these women and men with the skills to deal with the emotional turmoil of coming home. We owe it to them and we owe it to ourselves to give them the skills so that they can come home as whole people.

Learn more about emotional intelligence at the Six Seconds conference, going on today and tomorrow in Menlo Park.

The other intelligence

A collective of any kind requires great communication … good listening skills … and cooperation. But get any group of people together in a small space for long periods of time, and things can go awry. Like on MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”

Okay, so most of us aren’t likely to break out into fistfights with our roommates, but we’ve all heard stories about crazy bosses, unbearable colleagues, and dysfunctional workplaces. That’s when Josh Freedman says we need to exercise our emotional intelligence.

JOSH FREEDMAN: Emotional intelligence is being smart with feelings. If we pay attention to those feelings, we can be more intentional with them, we can be more purposeful with them. We can use them as data. We can use them as energy to make better decisions and respond more proactively.

We’ve all experienced that we’ve done dumb things when we’re reacting emotionally. That doesn’t mean that emotions are bad; it means that we haven’t learned. We haven’t been intelligent with our feelings. So if we can tap into them, we can understand them better – we can be more emotionally intelligent.

Freedman is the COO of Six Seconds, the Emotional Intelligence Network. It’s an organization that helps people improve their relationships from the inside out. Freedman sat down with KALW’s Erica Mu to discuss what emotional intelligence is, and how an unlikely national institution has used it for the better.

* * *

JOSH FREEDMAN: We all have changes that we want to make – personally, professionally, in our organizations, in our families, and in our own health. And in order to make those changes, one of the big challenges is that we’ve got to learn. We’ve got to engage some new capacities. We’ve got to develop some new competence. And we’ve got to do things differently if we’re going to have different results. And so, we’re going to learn and use emotions, and learn through emotions, that understanding of how the brain actually works – tapping into what drives our changes, what drives new insights, what drives our capacity to do things differently, and understanding that a huge part of that is emotional, understanding that emotions have a governing effect.

Take trust, for example. Trust is an emotion that tells us whether to move forward or not. So we’re trying to change, we’re trying to do something new. It we don’t pay attention to trust and really tap into that and learn what that is and how to make it work, we’re not going to create change.

And we’ve developed a process framework. It’s really three simple steps, and when we follow those steps, we can start using our emotional intelligence more effectively. And those steps are: know ourselves, which is about gaining the data – tuning in, finding out what’s happening. Second is to choose ourselves, which is about being more intentional instead of being reactive. And the third is to give ourselves, which is about aligning our choices with our deeper sense of purpose – paying attention to others, paying attention to what we really want, making sure that what we’re doing and how we’re doing it aligns to that.

ERICA MU: So, I want to know more about the “manage” part of this equation. Josh, describe to me if I’m really angry, and in a situation where something’s been stolen from me and that I realize that I’ve misplaced it, but I’m still angry – what do I do?

FREEDMAN: Well I’d say first of all, if you’ve got some chocolate on your desk and it disappears and you think somebody’s stolen it and then you realize that it was actually in your bag or something, you’re going to have a set of emotions. And you may notice your anger. You may also have other emotions that you might not be noticing at first glance. And so I’d say the first step before you get to “manage” is understanding – know yourself. What is the range of feelings that you’re feeling? You’re feeling angry – okay. “I’m also feeling worried. I’m also feeling like I’ve been an idiot. I’m also feeling remorse. I’m feeling this big mix of feelings.”

If we pay attention only to the surface feeling, it’d be the same thing as only paying attention to the surface piece of data if we’re doing analysis about a company or buying a property or buying a car. It’s like, is all you’re going to look at the color? Is all you’re going to look at the name of the business? Or are you going to dig in and try to understand there’s a little bit more going on here?

So if we get past the surface and we realize, okay – “I have this feeling, but there are also all these other feelings underneath, and what are all these other feelings about?” They’re there for a reason. So that’s the second point that I think is very important, is that often we have feelings, and we tell ourselves, “I shouldn’t feel this way. I shouldn’t feel frustrated. I shouldn’t feel worried. I shouldn’t feel jealous.” And when we pay attention to that, what we’re doing is we’re going to war with ourselves. When we get caught up in an emotion – sometimes we have a self perception that we have no choice about what we’re feeling and no choice about what we’re doing – and the simple recognition that we do have a choice creates this huge transformation. “Wait a minute, if I have choice, what am I going to do? What am I going to exercise? Where am I going to go with this?”

And that in itself begins to transform the feeling.

MU: Josh, describe to me your trainings with the Navy. It’s an institution that most of us don’t really think about as caring too much about feelings. It’s an institution that often is known to be more action-oriented. What was that like?

FREEDMAN: I went in with a number of assumptions. I grew up in Berkeley in a very liberal family. And so I went into this project thinking that I had some understanding of what the military was, and I found that it was really different than I expected. I found that people were there in general with very strong values, very strong sense of commitment to mission, commitment to their country – a real service orientation. And that’s all emotional. That’s all about feelings that engender a sense of loyalty and trust and courage.

We did work with the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, and the Navy. We’ve also worked with all the other branches of the armed services. And they are very concerned about emotion. They pay a lot of attention to it. They don’t generally talk about it as emotion; they use phrases like, “We’ve got to get our head in the game.” In the Marine Corps, they talk about a “spree.” But really what they’re talking about is emotion.

I had an officer say to me, “I’m not going to ask a bunch of Marines how they’re feeling before they storm a hill.” But if you don’t know how they’re feeling, it’s probably a really bad idea to storm the hill, because if you’re not paying attention to your own feelings and your relationship with them and their feelings in this situation, you may be in for a really difficult problem when you get to this place of saying, “Hey guys, we’re going to go do this.”

I think that one of the most powerful comments I got from one of the people I worked with in the Navy was a member of the chaplain corps, and he said, “We send people into this incredibly awful thing of war, and we need to provide a bridge for them to come home.” You know there’s an incredible problem with domestic violence from returning warriors, and that is … it’s a national tragedy that we’re not equipping these women and men with the skills to deal with the emotional turmoil of coming home. We owe it to them and we owe it to ourselves to give them the skills so that they can come home as whole people.

Learn more about emotional intelligence at the Six Seconds conference, going on today and tomorrow in Menlo Park.